Gauge your knockwurst knowledge with Sausage Fest test

The Vancouver Sausage Fest offers three days of music, eating, carnival rides and family fun. (Files/The Columbian)

When it comes to Clark County’s defining events, there’s the fair, the Fourth of July fireworks and the Sausage Fest.

One of the area’s biggest community gatherings, the Sausage Fest attracts about 100,000 people over three days. Along with celebrating sausage to raise funds for St. Joseph Catholic School, there’s a carnival, arts and crafts vendors, dozens of booths selling food and treats as well as a beer garden.

This year bingo will make a comeback. The game hasn’t been a part of Sausage Fest for more than a decade. And for the first time, organizers are hosting a 5K run and walk.

To get you in the right frame of mind for this year’s Sausage Fest, we’ve prepared a quiz about the event and its main course.

See how many questions you get right and use our scoring system to determine if you’re a wiener or a wurst-case scenario.

1. The St. Joseph School Board started Sausage Fest in 1972, motivated by:
A. A competing private school’s Burger Fest.
B. A congregational vote for more servings of meat.
C. Proselytizing opportunities.
D. Middle school grade levels that would have been cut without additional funding.

2. The lineage of sausage has been traced back to the earliest civilizations, including Sumeria, a part of the world today known as:
A. Egypt.
B. Iraq.
C. Turkey.
D. Germany.

3. As part of trying to stamp out the pagan Roman festival of Lupercalia, around the time of Constantine, this group initially decided to ban the eating of sausage:
A. The Catholic Church.
B. The Freemasons.
C. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
D. Opus Dei.

4. Comedian Stephen Colbert gave a new distinction to this local festival last year when — on his national television show The Colbert Report — he dubbed it:
A. America’s Vancouver Sausage Fest.
B. Bigger than fireworks.
C. The largest Sausage Fest besides the high school graduation party of one of his buddies.
D. The party to end all parties.

5. Which of the following is not traditionally offered as part of Sausage Fest?
A. A beer garden.
B. A sausage-eating contest.
C. A corn-shucking contest.
D. Live entertainment.

6. The St. Joseph congregation originally held a blind taste test, a competition among 13 sausage makers, to pick a distinctive recipe for the festival’s featured food. Who won?
A. Ralph Kendig.
B. Ezra J. Warner.
C. Melitta Bentz.
D. Frank McNamara.

7. What was the secret ingredient?
A. Mustard.
B. Chicken.
C. Tofu.
D. It’s still a secret.

8. Who was the priest who led the church’s efforts to start the Sausage Fest?
A. Edmund Kearney.
B. Jean Baptiste Jolly.
C. Louis Glass.
D. Percy L. Spencer.

9. Emperor Leo VI, “The Wise,” banned eating sausage, too, early in the 10th century, because:
A. No one could tell him what really was in one.
B. He didn’t like the shape of them.
C. There was an outbreak of food poisoning.
D. He had plans to create a Burger Fest.

10. The term “sausage” is derived from the Latin word “salsus,” which means what?
A. Sellable.
B. Spicy.
C. Surprise.
D. Salted.